International Journal of Computer Trends and Technology (IJCTT) volume 6 number 3 Dec 2013

ISSN: 2231-2803 http://www.ijcttjournal.org Page130

Advanced Vehicle Tracking System on Google Earth
Using GPS and GSM

Sowjanya Kotte
Assistant Professor
Department of E.C.E
Sir C.R.Reddy College of Engineering.

Hima Bindhu Yanamadala
M.Tech Communication Systems
Department of E.C.E
Sir C.R.Reddy College of Engineering

Abstract Vehicle navigation is one of the most important
applications in the era of navigation which is mostly used
by drivers. Therefore the efficiency of the maps given to the
drivers has a great importance in the navigation system. In
this paper we proposed a very efficient system which uses
the GPS and earth maps to help the driver in navigation by
robust display of the current position of the vehicle on a
displayed map. The main aim of this project is designing a
system which is capable of continuous monitoring of path
of the vehicle on PC with Google Earth Application. Here
the important issue is displaying the map on several various
scales which are adopted by the users. The heart elements
in the implementation of this project are GPS, GSM and
MCU. The GPS-GSM integrated structure is designed to
track the vehicles by using Google earth application. The
micro controller is used to receive data from GPS and to
transfer the latitude and longitude to the PC to map by
using the VB.Net language and this map is generated using
Google Earth information.
Key words: GPS, Microcontroller, vehicle, PC and Map
and Google earth.

I. Introduction
The primary roots of vehicle navigation are lying in the
field of shipping. Whenever the ships are spread over the
ocean, it is difficult to owners to find out or to track their
ships. Therefore definitely it is important to determine
where the vehicle is situated at any time. And this need
of vehicle tracking rose to avoid the any kind of vehicle
thefts because the police can use these tracking reports to
find out the stolen vehicles. In todays advanced
technological world many systems require automatic
identification of vehicle location i.e. effectively
determine the geographic location of the vehicle and
transforms the location information to remotely located
server. In this project the efficient detection of vehicle
location is the major goal and this system is
implemented using so many advanced technologies:
GPS, GSM and Google Earth information etc. GPS and
GSM based vehicle location system provides very
efficient results besides mapping information will give
improving level of service quality [10, 11].
Overview of GPS:
Among all the advanced communication technologies
GPS is the utmost technology and which provides very
robust information of location and time in all weather
conditions and at all times. Simply GPS is a global
navigation system (GNSS) which is purely space based
[1]. The US government is maintaining the GPS and it is
free to all with a GPS receiver. GPS project was initiated
in the year of 1973 by overcoming all the limitations of
early navigation systems.GPS system contains totally 24
satellites and it became fully available in the year of
1994.
Over view of GSM:
In the era of mobile communications GSM (Global
system for Mobile Communications) is the top most
standard. 80% of the global mobile market uses the
GSM standard [1]. In more than 212 countries over than
2 billion people uses the GSM [2],[3]. Therefore the
subscribers are able to use mobile communication
throughout the world by arranging the international
roaming arrangements among mobile network operators
of different countries. In the GSM signaling and as well
as speech channels are digital in nature, where preceding
technologies are not digital. Therefore GSM is
considered as second generation mobile phone system.
The greatest feasibility of GSM is it provides advantage
to both the parties i.e. to consumer and network operator.
The consumers may get benefit from the roaming and
network operators may select many GSM equipment
vendors.
Objective
Implementing GPS based navigation/tracking
system.
Implementing vehicle location system by using the
information from GPS and GSM/GPRS by
transforming information with following features:
Obtaining the information of the vehicle after
every specified time interval.
Transmission of location information to
monitoring or tracking server.
Implementing a display unit by using Google
earth to display vehicle location in the maps.

The remaining of this paper is discussed as follows. In
Section II, we discuss about related work and from
section III we clearly explain about the system model.
Hardware design process is illustrated in section IV.
Section V consists of analysis of results and finally
conclusion of this paper discussed in section VI.


International Journal of Computer Trends and Technology (IJCTT) volume 6 number 3 Dec 2013

ISSN: 2231-2803 http://www.ijcttjournal.org Page131

II. Related work
Several cutting edge technologies are proposed by many
researchers for the purpose of vehicle tracking. And
these methods mostly consist of GPS, communications,
Remote control server etc [2]-[6]. In this particular
paper we proposed a systematic method to track the
automobile vehicles status by using the integration of
several communications and embedded systems like
GPS, GSM, CPU, and Serial Interface etc. Google earth
[3] is used to visualize the location data of the vehicle,
which is sent by the GSM and provided by GPS.
III. System Model
The block diagram for system model for the
proposed system is shown in figure 1.


Fig 1: The block diagram of Advanced Vehicle Tracking System on
Google Earth Using GPS and GSM

The two major design units in the implementation of this
navigation system is
In-Vehicle unit
Tracking Server/Monitoring Station.
In-Vehicle-Unit:
In vehicle unit is the core part of this navigation system
and it will be installed in the vehicle. The responsibilities
of in vehicle unit are to gathering the information about
current location of the vehicle and transmitting location
data information to the tracking server. The In-vehicle
Unit comprises with GPS Receiver which is responsible
for getting location information of the vehicle by using
satellites as a pair of latitude and as well as longitude,
Micro Controller Unit (MCU) is the key part to observe
the GPS information from GPS receiver and then
retrieve the location information and then transmit this
data to tracking server using GSM modem. Third
important component of the in- Vehicle unit is GSM
modem. GSM modem is responsible for transmitting the
vehicle location information to the Tracking server. The
block diagram for In-vehicle unit is shown in figure 2.As
shown in figure the GPS antenna is located towards the
sky and it receives the locations information from the
GPS system satellites. RS 232 is the serial interface
module and it transfers the GPS information to the to the
CPU unit. Micro Controller Unit (MCU) is the key part
to observe the GPS information from GPS receiver and
then retrieve the location information and then transmit
this data to tracking server using GSM modem and
another key feature of the MCU is it controls the
operation of GSM/GPRS modems using AT commands.


Fig.2 :In-Vehicle Unit Block diagram
For reliable communication GSM an external antenna is
required by the GSM modem for efficient transmission
and reception of information.
Tracking Server/Monitoring Station:
All the information send by the In-vehicle unit which is
placed in automobile vehicle is received and stored in
data base which is maintained by tracking server. This
database has the feature that to access by any authorized
user using web interface. Therefore authorized users can
easily track their vehicles. To receive the information
from the in vehicle unit the tracking server has an
additional GSM/GPRS receiver. Tracking server unit
mainly consists of GSM/GPRS modem for effective
communication with In- Vehicle unit, data base to store
the vehicle information and web interface to provide
user interface. Figure 3 to illustrate the tracking server.

International Journal of Computer Trends and Technology (IJCTT) volume 6 number 3 Dec 2013

ISSN: 2231-2803 http://www.ijcttjournal.org Page132


Figure 3: The system architecture: GPS tracking and GSM modules.

IV. Hardware Specification
As shown in figure 4 the tracking unit has two main
inputs: the first one is obtained by the GPS output and it
is NMEA 0183 based sentence format. And another
input is from OBD-II (ON Board Diagnostics port).
Using AT commands the unit sends the SMS.

Fig 4: Schematic diagram of in-vehicle tracking unit

Most of the automobiles support OBD-II (On-
Board Diagnostics port), which is a universal
protocol designed for automotive purposes to
retrieve the errors of CAN (Controller Area
Network) bus of the MCU. SIM900D type GSM
modem is used and it uses AT commands. And the
transmission parameters are set as the data is in
8N1 format, Baud Rate is as 19200bps and the
value for flow control is 1. MediaTek MT3329 type
GPS receiver is installed and it stands up to 10HZ
update rate. GSM modem at In-vehicle unit send
the information in MCE to another GSM modem at
recipient side. And finally after the processing all
the information is appear on Google Earth. The
tracking units external view is shown in figure 5.

Fig 5:. The tracking unit hardware.

V. Results And Analysis
For the purposes of tracking and visual view we
used the Google Earth software and it supports
several GPS receivers. GPS module used in our
project has NMEA 0183 type protocol standard to
transmit the GPS information. NMEA 0183
protocol has several sentences of 79 character
length starting with $ character [4]. The location of
the vehicle is determined by the $GPRMC
sentence. MediaTek MT3329 GSM modem is used
to send and receive the GPS information at In-
Vehicle unit and monitoring unit consequently. The
received information is processed and by using
Visual Basic programming and Google Earth the
location of the vehicle will display on Google
maps.
Here we provide the analysis of results as step by
step. In the first step the calls for the Mandalay map
window and then by using serial comport the GPS
information is transmitted as shown in figure 6.

Fig.6 the testing with serial data for mapping display
International Journal of Computer Trends and Technology (IJCTT) volume 6 number 3 Dec 2013

ISSN: 2231-2803 http://www.ijcttjournal.org Page133

With the incoming latitude and longitude values the
position of the vehicle is illustrated in figure 7. By using
the Google Earths the map is developed for the visual
purpose. The position of the vehicle is represented with
red mark.


Fig.7 The test result

The consecutive position of the vehicle is shown inFig.8.


Fig.8 The consecutive test position


VI. CONCLUSIONS
The proposed Advanced Vehicle Tracking System on
Google Earth Using GPS and GSM paper presents
efficient location of the vehicle on the map by
integrating the several communication technologies and
display setups. The locations of the vehicle are displayed
on Mandalay map by using Google Earth. GPS and
GSM modems are used to track the location of the
information and to send the information to tracking
server.
REFERENCES
[1]. G. T. French (1996) Understanding the GPS. 1st Edition.
Bethesda, GeoResearch Inc.
[2]. J.B. TSUI (2000) Fundamentals of Global Positioning System
Receivers. 1st Edition. John Willey & Sons Inc.
[3] Yo O., Polak J.W., Noland R.W, Park Y et al.: Integration of GPS
and dead reckoning for real- time vehicle performance and emissio.
Wydawnictwo Springer GPS Solutions 4.
[4]. R. Parsad, M. Ruggieri (2005) Applied Satellite Navigation Using
GPS, GALILEO, and Augmentation Systems. London, ARTECH
HOUSE.
[5]. R. Steel et al (2001) GSM, cdmaOne and 3G Systems. Chichester,
John Willey & Sons Inc.
[6]. T. Halonen et al (2003) GSM, GPRS and EDGE Performance. 2
nd

Edition. Chichester, John Willey & Sons Ltd.
[7]. NMEA Publication 0183, "NMEA0183 Interface Standard", 2
nd
Edition, National Marine Electronic Association, May 1991.
[8]. Telit Wireless Solutions (2008) GM862-GPS Modem
[9]. Microchip (2007) PIC18FXX8 Datasheet
[10]. Transportation District's Automatic Vehicle
LocationSystem[online:]http://www.itsdocs.fhwa.dot.gov//JPODOCS/
REPTS_TE/13589.html
[11]. Vehicle Tracking Systems Overview [Online:]
http://www.roseindia.net/technology/vehicletracking/
VehicleTrackingSystems.shtml
[12]. Telit Wireless Solutions (2007) GM862-GPS Hardware user
guide. 1vv0300728 Rev. 8 - 20/09/07 World Academy of Science,
Engineering and Technology 37 2010


Soujanya Kotte, born in India in 1984,received her B.Tech in
Electronics and Communication Engineering from Jawaharlal Nehru
Technological University, Hyderabad in the year 2005 and M.Tech
degree in Digital Electronics and Communication Systems from
Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Kakinada in the year
2009. She currently holds the position of Assistant Professor as a
faculty of Electronics and Communication Engineering at Sir C R
Reddy college of Engineering, Eluru, Andhra Pradesh, India. Her
research interests include speech, image, video processing and non
linear signal processing.



Hima Bindu Yanamadala, born in India in 1990,received her B.Tech in
Electronics and Communication Engineering from Jawaharlal Nehru
Technological University, Hyderabad in the year 2011 and Persuing
M.Tech degree in Communication Systems from Andhra University ,
Vishakapatnam.Her research interests include speech, image, video
processing, GPS and non linear signal processing.